After The Fires Went Out: Coyote (Book One of the Post-Apocalyptic Adventure Series) (68 page)

Today is Thursday, January 17th.

Justin showed up before sunrise with his phone in his hand.

Kayla and I were in the living room.

“Alain left me a message with Marc’s old phone,” he said. “It’s for you, I’d say.”

“They need help,” I said.

“They need help. The Souls have them trapped on 101. Said by the time he saw the roadblock they’d dropped another one in behind them.”

“Let me see.”

He handed me the phone.

“You tried calling him?”

“Signal’s too weak right now. Too much snow.”

“This came through ten minutes ago... now there’s too much snow?”

“Try it yourself. Call him.”

I pressed for Marc’s phone.

“Won’t even ring,” Justin said.

“What will make it ring?”

“Higher ground, maybe.”

“We don’t have any of that.”

“We might,” Kayla said. “And it’s further east... by Norembega... that helps, right?”

Justin shook his head. “So you two want us to waste fuel trying to get a signal from a guy who willingly split from us?”

“That sums it up,” I said. “Isn’t that what your electric shitbox is for?”

“They’ll be dead before we get there.”

“Then we won’t have to feel like we didn’t try.”

The three of us went together toward Norembega, driving in the ruts we’d carved on our cart trips to Helena, with Kayla crammed in the tiny back seat even though she was the navigator. I appreciated the sentiment, as I’m not sure I could have fit back there.

We reached the junction to Norembega and Helena.

“Turn left,” Kayla said.

“We can’t cut through that much snow,” Justin said. “No one’s driven there since the snow fell.”

“We’ll have to walk,” I said. “How far, Kayla?”

“Not far,” she said. “You can see it from here.” She pointed to a rocky outcrop covered in snow.

“You won’t get a signal,” Justin said.

“Just give me the phone,” I said.

“I’m coming with you,” Kayla said.

Together we jogged up the road toward the little mountain.

The road curved to the left. We moved off into the snow and made our way through the trees.

At some points the ground became so steep that we had to grip the pine trees like handrails.

We didn’t stop until we’d climbed to the top.

And there I found a signal.

I pushed for Marc’s phone.

And Alain answered.

“They’re just waiting by the junction with 572,” he said. “They know we’re stuck. I guess they figure we’ll just give ourselves up if they wait long enough. They’re probably right.”

“Are you sure it’s The Souls?” I said.

“I’m sure. There’s at least twenty of them at the roadblock now.”

“At both roadblocks? Total?”

“No. In front of us. Twenty in front and I don’t know how many behind.”

“You need to find out.”

“We need your help, Baptiste.”

“I’m at least two hours away.”

“We’ll try to hold out.”

“Do that.”

I ended the call.

I looked over to Kayla.

“They’re all going to die,” I said.

“We’ve got to try to reach them.”

“I know.”

“Then let’s go.”

She started back down the little mountain.

I struggled to keep up.

“I’m coming with you,” Kayla said as Justin rushed us back to McCartney Lake.

“I can’t let you do that,” I said.

“Well, I’m not going,” Justin said, “so there’s a slot available.”

“You’d turn their back on them?” Kayla asked.

“They turned first. I’m not risking my family’s life on people who chose how they’d die.”

“I think that’s valid,” I said. “I’m not sure I want to die for these people either.”

“So we just leave them there?” Kayla asked.

“I’m not sure yet.”

“When will you know?”

“Hopefully before we get down there.”

When we got back to McCartney Lake I started collecting the gear. Riot suits, vests, helmets... snowshoes to deliver our surprise to The Souls... I’d made sure to include my trusty guitar case; I still had rounds enough to cause some damage.

Kayla went to grab some food and water for the trip.

Once we were packed she asked me to drive over to the shed by Fiona and Gwyneth’s cottage.

We went inside the shed and she started pulling out the tackle boxes.

“Might as well bring all of the explosives,” she said. “If we don’t make it back, it’s not like Fiona’s going to find a use for this crap.”

“I had some of this earmarked for Detour Lake,” I said.

“We’ll worry about that later.”

I nodded.

And I started loading the tackle boxes into the truck.

Fiona came out to see what was happening.

“They need our help,” I said.

“You’re really going?” she asked.

“We are.”

“Both of you?”

“I think I can be of use,” Kayla said.

Fiona walked over to her. “Be careful, Kayla,” she said. She gave her a hug. “I don’t want to lose my arch nemesis.”

“We’ll be okay,” Kayla said. “We won’t do anything stupid.”

“This whole trip is something stupid,” I said.

Fiona walked over to me. “Don’t let anything happen to her,” she said. “Or to you.” She reached up and kissed me on the cheek.

I wrapped my arms around her and pulled her close to me. “I love you, Fiona,” I said. “Don’t ever forget that.”

“Then make sure you get your butt back here to remind me.”

We put on our riot suits and vests and then we went up to Hwy 652, the fuel gauge getting so close to empty that I knew we might get the warning light before we even reached Hwy 101. If that happened, the only way we’d get home would be if we could take some of Katie and Sky’s biodiesel.

If we didn’t reach them in time, there was a chance we’d be stranded in Souls of Flesh territory with just enough food for a picnic lunch.

That would be a long and hungry walk back to McCartney Lake.

From 652 we took the road that led to Iroquois Falls, following in the ruts that our former lakemates had made.

I’d seen from the map that we needed to turn just before the steel bridge over the upper Abitibi, but I decided that I needed to see if that bridge was still there.

And from the turnoff I couldn’t tell.

I drove up a little further, through untracked snow that made me a little nervous of getting stuck. But we had weight on our side, as long as I didn’t get sucked into the ditch.

The gray steel truss bridge started at the riverbank, but didn’t make it across. It looked like whatever they’d used to blow it up had been planted at the base of a pier just off the far side of the bank. The span had fallen there, landing on the bank.

In theory, you could climb across if you weren’t afraid of heights or drowning, but there was no way to get a car across.

I guess that’s all that mattered to the ones who blew it up.

We backtracked to Twin Falls road, heading southeast to the hydro dam along the same ruts in the snow. No one had bothered to blow that crossing up, and I didn’t even have to slow down as we drove across the long tail of Lake Abitibi.

We reached the concession roads outside of the town of Matheson, and we started counting.

We turned left onto the third road, heading due east, following the tracks.

As we passed the next road junction I noticed more tracks heading south.

“There’s other traffic here,” I said. “Probably The Souls. Helmets.”

Kayla passed me a helmet before she put hers on. “I hope you’re just being paranoid.”

“I’m not sure you can be paranoid when the whole world’s out to get you.”

We reached the end of the road. The tracks stopped.

I stopped the truck.

“Looks like they turned around,” I said. “But there’s supposed to be a turnoff.”

“There isn’t.”

“Check the map.”

“The map is wrong.”

“What?”

She handed me the tablet.

“There’s no road here,” she said. “Maybe there was a road at one point, like a couple of ruts or something... but it’s long gone.”

“We’ll have to get that much closer to Matheson.”

“Do we know what’s there?”

“Can’t be anything good. It’s too close to Timmins to be left alone. It’s no wonder The Souls seemed to know they were coming.”

“If that’s true, they’ll see us coming.”

“We’ll find another way.”

I switched the aerial view, and zoomed in.

“Machinery road,” I said. “Right there.” I pointed to a small line of brown the led all the way to 101.

“We don’t have a plow anymore. We’ll get stuck.”

“We might. Better than getting seen.”

“This truck weighs like a ton.”

“Well... it’s a one ton truck, but it probably clocks in at almost five thousand kilos.”

“If it gets stuck we can’t just push it out.”

“That’s true.”

If we got stuck, we’d be stuck. The only way to pull a one-ton truck out of trouble was with another truck. And we only had the one.

“We’re going to have to risk it,” I said.

“The machinery road?”

“Getting seen. For all we know, we’ve already been seen. Or no one was seen, and they keep that roadblock ready 24/7.”